Criminals and Human Rights

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

The RIGHT is not forfeited. The EXERCISE of the right is forfeited.

Without the ability to exercise a right, the right does not exist. To use your examples:

• If you choose not to take part in a protest, you have forfeited the right to participate in that protest. That does not mean you gave up the right to participate in any other protests, only that particular one.
  
  
• If you choose to remain silent, you are forfeiting your right to free speech at that time only. That does not mean you forfeit future a future right to speak; you can choose to exercise that right at any time.
  
  
• If you choose not to follow a religion, you are forfeiting that right at that time, without forfeiting future ability to exercise it.
  
  
• If you do something that makes you miserable, you are forfeiting any right to happiness (is that even a right?) without forfeiting future rights to happiness should you change your mind.
  
  
• If you willingly lock yourself up, you have indeed forfeited your right to freedom at that time... you can decide to exercise it in the future however, assuming someone lets you out.

In all of the above examples, the key ingredient is that you chose whether or not to invoke your right. Since you made the decision not to invoke it, you can also make the decision at any time to use that right. In this case, we are not talking about individuals personally choosing to forfeit their rights for a moment in time; we are talking about individuals accepting specified consequences that allow the state to revoke their rights. The choice as to whether or not they wish to use their rights after making such a decision is not up to them, because the state has removed the right and only the state can then return it.

Show me one inmate who willingly walked into prison and demands that he be allowed to remain there. The choice is not his; it is the state's. He has no more right to liberty until such time as the state reinstates said right.

To claim that one may have a right without the ability to exercise it is at best semantics and at worst dangerous. For instance, if you wish to speak out at a town meeting and are told you may not, your right has been usurped; you no longer have it. To say that you have the right to speak but you cannot right now because the authority to use that right is removed is simply an exercise in confusion.

A right only remains while the individual has the ability to exercise it.

TheRedneck

Originally posted by TheRedneck
Since you made the decision not to invoke it, you can also make the decision at any time to use that right.

Exactly. The RIGHT still exists.

In this case, we are not talking about individuals personally choosing to forfeit their rights for a moment in time;

We're talking about individuals choosing to forfeit their ability to exercise their rights for a period of time. If a person chooses to commit a crime, they are choosing to take the chance of getting caught and having the ability to exercise their rights limited or removed while they are incarcerated. They still retain their inalienable rights, however.

Show me one inmate who willingly walked into prison and demands that he be allowed to remain there. The choice is not his; it is the state's.

It WAS his choice to commit the crime. THAT'S where he made the choice.

He has no more right to liberty until such time as the state reinstates said right.

The state did not instate that right, so cannot reinstate it. My previous link explained a prisoner's right to liberty.

A right only remains while the individual has the ability to exercise it.

Sorry. We simply disagree. Inalienable rights cannot be taken away or forfeited. That's what inalienable means.

And all of this doesn't change the fact that this man was NOT in prison. He served his time and was free. His rights AND exercise thereof, are in tact.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

The state did not instate that right, so cannot reinstate it. My previous link explained a prisoner's right to liberty.

The state has control of a prisoner's right once he is incarcerated. The state did not originally instate his right to liberty, but he himself, by his actions to violate the law and infringe on the rights of another, has forfeited this right to the state. Had he locked himself up willingly, he would have forfeited his right to himself and could therefore reinstate it at any time.

Think of it as a legal document. Each of us is born with this document that grants us certain rights. No one can take these rights by force, but we do have the ability to choose to not invoke (read forfeit) this document at any time. In that case, we still have the document and can choose at any time to open it and invoke that right. If, however, we, by our own actions, choose to surrender this document to the state, the state has the document for a prescribed period of time, so we cannot open it at will any more until that document is returned to us.

Once a person chooses to commit a crime, he/she is choosing to allow the state to take his/her rights, according to prescribed law, for a specified time (which may in some cases be forever). The state has not forced him/her to give up his/her right, but it has taken what he/she offered up of his/her own free will. As a result, he/she no longer retains that right while it is in the possession of the state.

It's more than semantics, BH. If a right always resides with the individual, then cases may be made as to whether the state even has the ability to lock someone away at all. But the right does not remain with the individual where that individual has freely engaged in actions which give their rights to the state.

I have been speaking generally, but as to this particular case, yes, we agree. Once the specified time (which I believe was way too short as well) had expired, his debt was paid and his right returned to his possession. The problem lies not with the perpetrator, but with the law.

TheRedneck